Freeing Google From the Desktop

New Mobile Applications
Put Popular Web Features
On Your Portable Device

By

Walter S. Mossberg and

Katherine Boehret

Updated Nov. 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET

Google has been branching out from its search-engine roots to offer a variety of Web-based applications. Some of these, especially Gmail and Google Maps, have been well received and are quite popular on computers. Now the company wants us to use these and other applications away from the computer, too -- on mobile devices.

This week, we put Google's suite of mobile programs through the ringer to see if we might let it infiltrate our on-the-go lifestyle as easily as we've let Google search become an everyday part of our...